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Punky Brewster's Shrooms

How the Drug War bamboozles kids about so-called 'drugs'

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

July 10, 2022



In response to Julian Buchanan's blog post entitled 'Our children deserve better: Our drug laws place them at risk'


More great common sense. Thanks, Julian.

The Drug War increases drug misuse by children by, 1) keeping the subject of "drugs" forever on the mind of rebellious youth (see "Synthetic Panics" for how this is accomplished), and 2) encouraging them to fear and despise substances rather than to understand them. (It often accomplishes this here in the States by having the state police or the DARE organization bribe the kids with teddy bears to adopt a jaundiced Christian Science view of psychoactive medicines.) That's why "crack cocaine " is a byword for "hopelessly addictive substance" in the west, even though that form of coke can be used non-addictively by a person who has been taught to do so. In a recent documentary ("Kid 90") about the '80s child star Soleil Moon Frye (AKA "Punky Brewster" of sitcom fame), one of her friends describes how he used a variety of illegal substances, including crack cocaine , "acid," and heroin 1 (which he says he smoked). "But," he said, "I always did this little thing where I'd do it and then not do it for a long time, where I wouldn't get so super strung out or anything."

Sounds like he saw through drug-war lies, right? He realized that informed use was the answer rather than substance demonization. But not so, for he then adds, apparently in deference to drug-warrior sensibilities: "Which isn't any excuse, but..."

Really? Why not?

A second friend then proceeds to blast "drugs" by implicitly blaming them for the deaths of his friends in the '90s, despite the fact that those deaths were a result of prohibition combined with the drug-war policy of willful ignorance about psychoactive substances. But Soleil's only comment about "drugs" in this documentary was in reference to an ecstatic experience that she had with her friends in a sunny wheat field after consuming a few mushrooms. "I have such a soft spot in my heart for mushrooms," she says, "I must tell you, because of that experience."

Indeed, the experience was so positive that she violates drug-war etiquette by failing to follow up this statement with the customary post-facto denunciation of her youthful "drug use," thereby failing to emulate the seemingly endless list of two-faced British politicians who profess their scorn for the cocaine 2 3 that they used so liberally in their youth.


Notes:

1: Lee Robins' studies of heroin use among US Vietnam veterans Hall, Wayne, National Library of Medicine, 2016 (up)
2: Sigmund Freud's real breakthrough was not psychoanalysis DWP (up)
3: On Cocaine Freud, Sigmund (up)







Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US




Prohibitionists have nothing to say about all other dangerous activities: nothing about hunting, free climbing, hang-gliding, sword swallowing, free diving, skateboarding, sky-diving, chug-a-lug competitions, chain-smoking. Their "logic" is incoherent.

Scientists are censored as to what they can study thanks to drug law. Instead of protesting that outrage, they lend a false scientific veneer to those laws via their materialist obsession with reductionism, which blinds them to the obvious godsend effects of outlawed substances.

We might as well fight for justice for Christopher Reeves: he was killed because someone was peddling that junk that we call horses. The question is: who sold Christopher that horse?! Who encouraged him to ride it?!

More materialist nonsense. "We" are the only reason that the universe exists as a universe rather than as inchoate particles.

If any master's candidates are looking for a thesis topic, consider the following: "The Drug War versus Religion: how the policy of substance prohibition outlaws the attainment of spiritual states described by William James in 'The Varieties of Religious Experience.'"

Outlawing opium wOutlawing opium was the ultimate government power grab. It put the government in charge of pain relief. as the ultimate government power grab. It put the government in charge of pain relief.

According to Donald Trump's view of life, Jesus Christ was a chump. We should hate our enemies, not love them.

We know that anticipation and mental focus and relaxation have positive benefits -- but if these traits ae facilitated by "drugs," then we pretend that these same benefits somehow are no longer "real." This is a metaphysical bias, not a logical deduction.

The scheduling system is a huge lie designed to give an aura of "science" to America's colonialist disdain for indigenous medicines, from opium, to coca, to shrooms.

Doc to Franklin: "I'm sorry, Ben, but I see no benefits of opium use under my microscope. The idea that you are living a fulfilled life is clearly a mistake on your part. If you want to be scientific, stop using opium and be scientifically depressed like the rest of us."


Click here to see All Tweets against the hateful War on Us






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Thanks for visiting The Drug War Philosopher at abolishthedea.com, featuring essays against America's disgraceful drug war. Updated daily.

Copyright 2025, Brian Ballard Quass Contact: quass@quass.com


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